


A House is Not a Home

by ScribblerQueen1



Category: Glee, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Probably not Klaine/Blaine Friendly, Sebastian Smythe is Barry Allen | The Flash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribblerQueen1/pseuds/ScribblerQueen1
Summary: Barry was removed from Joe's custody and adopted by the Smythe's. He was forced to change everything about himself and was barely holding it together until now. Then he broke down in front of Kurt Hummel at the Lima Bean and told him everything. Now the Hummel's are helping Barry fight to live with his foster family, meanwhile, his mother's case gets a new development.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel, Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe, Rachel Berry/Finn Hudson
Comments: 30
Kudos: 121





	1. Reintroductions

Kurt had been studying at the lima bean after that day's earlier confrontation with Sebastian Smythe that had surprisingly ended in a truce after weeks of animosity between the warblers and New directions. Sebastian had seemed genuinely apologetic about everything that had happened and it really offset him. So, when he got up to leave to go home for dinner, he was shocked to see that Sebastian was still there but had moved to a secluded area. He thought that the warbler had left hours ago and now wondered if he had hung around because Kurt was still there, for whatever reason he could imagine. Fed up with his actions he walked over to confront him.   
  
"What are you still doing here Sebastian, you're not waiting to confront me are you? Was all that earlier just a ruse?" He accused him in suspicion. That suspicion faltered however, when Sebastian looked at him in resignation and defeat.   
  
"Please don't call me that." The request threw him for a loop, his voice pleading almost.   
  
"Call you by what? Sebastian? Why don't you want to be called by your name?" It wasn't like he had called him anything else. Kurt took in Sebastian for a moment and was unsettled by the change he saw in his entire demeanor. "Are you alright?" He softened his own demeanor. After what happened with Karofsky he wasn't always sure about whether people's outward emotions reflected what they felt internally.   
  
Sebastian hesitated for a brief moment and then slowly shook his head. "I'm not. I just can't -" He stopped not exactly sure what he should say to Kurt. His hands were trembling and he squeezed them tight trying to contain the shaking.   
  
"Do you want to talk? I'll go get you some water okay?" Once he was sure that was what he wanted Kurt quickly walked over to the counter and purchased a water bottle. He walked back over and opened the bottle before handing it to him. Sebastian took a few sips while Kurt sat down next to him.   
  
"I don't want to be called Sebastian." He started off confiding. "It's not my name. I don't want to be Sebastian Smythe anymore. I'm sick of being Sebastian Smythe."   
  
"What do you mean by that?" Kurt asked, wondering if he was having some sort of existential crisis or mental health issue.   
  
"I wasn't born Sebastian Smythe, that's the name that they forced on me. They just changed it without even asking." He was frustrated and angry, that much was obvious. It was quickly becoming clear that this was a complicated issue.   
  
"Who changed it?" This conversation was going in an entirely different direction than Kurt anticipated, one minute he was expecting confrontation and the next it was getting personal and mildly concerning. There was a hesitation in the reply that deepened the concern as time went on but he patiently waited for the warbler to gather the courage on his own.   
  
“My adoptive parents.” The quiet reply threw him for a loop. He shouldn’t be surprised by the news; he didn’t know him well enough to even be. It wasn’t something that was a casual conversation between glee club rivals.   
  
“So, what is your name? The one you want to be called.” Kurt gently tiptoed around the subject of his adoptive parents, so that he could talk about the real issue at hand at his own pace.   
  
“It’s Barry, Barry Allen.” Just saying the name brought a bit of relief to Barry, he visibly relaxed and it lightened the heaviness of emotions swirling around inside himself. It had been months since he’d said his birth name. Months ago, a social worker had shown up at the West house due to reports about concern for his environment. The entire thing was absolute bullshit. He was loved, healthy and cared for, but the constant bullying at school and his belief in his father’s innocence had him pulled from their residence. The report itself was interference from a corrupt politician that Joe had been investigating into and at the time Joe struggled to fight against the validity of the report and that Barry’s best interests lied with the Wests when Tommy Woodward had assaulted him at school.   
  
The courts felt that Joe should have been doing more to stop Barry’s delusions and that it would have prevented the targeted harassment against him, disregarding the fact that Woodward bullied him long before his mother’s death. Afterwards he had been placed with the Smythe family, which consisted of two bitterly married people that were trying to save face in a loveless and childless marriage for their high-class social status. His adoptive father was Richard Smythe, the State Attorney, and his adoptive Mother was Audrey Smythe, who was an heiress to old money in France. With their connections they quickly arranged for his adoption and changed his name to Sebastian Smythe, fabricating lies to maintain the illusion that he was their biological son who studied in France until now.   
  
They were terrible people, and he was wondering who looked the other way so that these two could even adopt a child. They constantly threatened and gaslighted him into behaving within their expectations and deterred any idea that he would ever see Joe and Iris again. There was tracking and monitoring on his phone and laptop preventing any social media and any site that wasn’t pre-approved beforehand. They then sent him to Dalton and denied him permission to use school issued technology and anything else he could do to contact them. He’d been angry and resentful, every step of the way pushing boundaries until yesterday. When he heard about Karofsky, he just crumbled. He felt awful for what he had said, even though a deeper part of him said it wasn’t his fault.   
  
His parents and Joe had raised him better than this. Joe had always said that it had been easier for him to be angry but that it was okay to be sad. So, he’d been sitting in the back of the Lima Bean after calling a truce with the New Directions trying to not fall apart knowing that he would have to leave Dalton for the long weekend and be at the Smythe’s house instead. He had attempted to stay with friends but they were going on vacation. He was aware that Richard and Audrey would be too busy to pay him any attention but he couldn’t stand being in that house and the dorms would be enforcing mandatory break so without permission to stay, that he wouldn’t be able to get anyway, he was stuck. Now he was here breaking down in front of Kurt Hummel, who had every reason to hate him.   
  
“Barry, that’s so different from Sebastian.” Kurt commented when he finally heard it. Barry was a common everyman type name while Sebastian was more preppy and higher-class sounding. Those names felt like they were meant for two completely different people.   
  
“Technically, Barry is short for Bartholomew which is kind of worse than Sebastian, but I was named after my grandfather.” He was slowly starting to ease up more and it felt like he was more of himself in the moments after he declared himself Barry Allen once more, like he was returning to a familiar place.   
  
“But it’s still your name and it means something to you. They took that away from you, why would they do that, I mean they adopted you right? They should’ve been considering how you felt, right?” Kurt was confused, he obviously didn’t have the entire story about what was going on in Barry’s family life but he couldn’t figure out how his circumstances would arise.   
  
Barry knew that it would be weird to dump this all on Kurt but he needed someone to understand and know what he was going through. “I’ve only lived with the Smythe Family for the past several months, they didn’t adopt me out of the goodness of their hearts, they adopted me to selfishly hide how terrible their marriage was. The only reason I was even with them in the first place is because the system thought they knew what was better for me and removed me from my original foster family, even though I was happy there.”   
  
“Why did they remove you then? If you were fine with your foster family.” It was obvious in the way that Barry spoke that he resented the decision.   
  
“My foster Dad is a cop, and he had this case investigating some politician and they wanted him to stop and they must have started digging into his background cause the next thing we knew child protective services showed up. At first, we thought everything was going to be fine but then I had these bullies at school and I ended up in the hospital. They blamed him and said that he was irresponsible with how he handled me. So, they showed up at the hospital and took me.” He confided in Kurt.   
  
It was shocking, that the person he thought he knew was turning to be completely different from what he had previously experienced. It wasn't in any way an act, the emotion on Barry's face was open and raw, filled with exhaustion and defeat from the pressure and defeat of lashing out at his circumstances. His earlier regrets now make sense with the context of his own experience with bullying. He knew Karofsky had the same issues of lashing out as a way of coping and deflecting his own feelings before coming to terms with them. Kurt grimaced at that thought. Karofsky had never really fully dealt with it which led to his attempt and he started to worry that Barry might be spiraling as well.   
  
"I know Dalton has the mandatory leave this weekend, are you going to be okay with going home to them?" He asked and watched him tense up.   
  
"I've honestly been sitting here figuring out how to not go home, even though they don't care about me, I just can't be with them anymore." Kurt knows the second he asked that he asked he had plans on intervening in the situation.   
  
"Then come home with me. I'll talk with my dad, he'll understand and you can stay in our guestroom for the weekend." Barry is surprised by the offer and wasn't sure how to respond considering how their interactions had been till now. Kurt can see the hesitation and gets ahead of him. "Okay, I'm making an executive decision for your own good, you're coming with me. I'll call my dad and then we're going to my house." He turns to make the call leaving Barry slightly shocked.   
  
Kurt swiftly punched in his dad's number and held it to his ear, listening to it ring until he picked up. "Hey, buddy. What's up?" Burt answers his call, sensing that Kurt's call was important, due to the unusual timing of the call.   
  
"Would it be alright if a friend from Dalton stayed with us this weekend? He's having some home issues and I'm concerned about him going home this weekend, I promise I'll explain it later." He quietly explained to his dad. Burt took a moment of consideration and then sighed.   
  
"Yeah, we'll work this out later. If you really think it's necessary, I trust your judgement, it's better safe than sorry if he really needs someone." Burt was quick to give his approval. "I'll see you and your friend at home."   
  
"Thanks dad, see you at home." Kurt hangs up with his dad and then also opts to call Finn to earn him ahead of time.   
  
"Hey Kurt. What's up, dude?" Finn says slightly distracted by what sounded like a video game.   
  
"Hey, Finn. I wanted to warn you that I might have found Sebastian in the middle of a nervous breakdown and that I'm being him home." He just kind of blurted out at him.   
  
"Yeah, okay-wait, what?" The video game pauses in the background. Finn brings his full attention to the conversation, confused and feeling like there's a misunderstanding. "Did I just hear you say Sebastian Smythe is coming to our house?!" His voice raises a bit.   
  
"I might have found him having a nervous breakdown and he revealed that he was adopted a few months ago and his adoptive parents are assholes that changed his name and cut him off from his foster family. So, he's been lashing out and then spiraled into a crisis and he needs help." Kurt rushed to explain. "Just, please don't freak out on him and we'll explain later, okay?"   
  
"Okay? I'm not entirely sure what's going on because I'm pretty sure a few hours ago you were convinced he was setting a trap and now you're bringing him home like a lost puppy. I mean, I'm sure you have a good reason because I couldn't see you trusting him otherwise, but I know you're the last one that would budge on your opinion without a good reason, so I trust you. I think."   
  
"Thank you, Finn. One last thing, his name was Barry Allen before the adoption, so could you please call him Barry. His breakdown is kind of centered on having to pretend to be someone he isn't, so just call him Barry, please. " Kurt said, partly pleading with his step brother.   
  
"Alright, see you when you get home, I guess." Finn awkwardly ends the conversation and hangs up the phone. He puts his phone away and heads back over to where Barry is still sitting, silent and uneasy. He looks up at Kurt and takes a deep breath.   
  
"So- we're going to your house?" He asks for confirmation.   
  
"Yep. Do you have everything you need or do you want to stop at Dalton first?" Barry shakes his head and then picks up his backpack and duffel bag. They head out to Kurt's navigator and he had Barry place his bags in the back seat. It's a silent drive to the house, mostly because he didn't want to push him to talk. They pull up to the house and he helps him with his bags and they set them aside in the hallway.   
  
"I'm home." Kurt calls out and then Carole pops out from the kitchen to greet them as she's finishing up dinner.   
  
"Your dad said you were bringing home a friend from Dalton." She walked over after cleaning her hands with a dish towel and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you sweetie, what's your name?"   
  
Barry returned the gesture and answered. "Barry Allen, thank you for letting me come here."   
  
"It's not a problem, why don't you go get changed? I'm sure you don't want to stay in your uniform after a long day. Dinner will be ready shortly." He grabs one bag and Kurt shows him the bathroom where he changes into a light t-shirt, burgundy sweater and jeans. He comes out of the bathroom and sees Finn and another member of the one directions, who he realizes he doesn't know, aside from seeing him at the sectionals performance.   
  
"Uh, hi. I'm sorry about everything from before. I've been dealing with some issues the wrong way and it took me a while to realize it. " Barry awkwardly apologizes to him.   
  
"It's okay, Kurt explained some of it. I've done some things in the past that I'm not proud of." Finn was honest with him. The blond teen, cleared his throat to interrupt.   
  
"Uh, hi, we really haven't met yet I'm Sam." He nodded in greeting, unsure if he should have interrupted.   
  
"Hi Sam, I'm Barry Allen." Just saying his own name again makes him more relaxed and happier, and the other two become less anxious as he does.   
  
"So, is your name spelled with an A or an E, because I was wondering, you know because Rachel's last name is also Berry but with an E and I thought it would be funny if you also had it spelled with an E and then they would match you know?" Sam broke the tension with his wandering thoughts which caused Barry to crack up in laughter.   
  
"No, it's spelled with an A, I'm sorry to disappoint you." He responded once he got himself under control. Kurt then popped back into the room looking relieved that they were okay with each other.   
  
"Dinner's ready." They moved into the dining room, where Burt now was back from the shop.   
  
Burt looked up at their entrance and moved to shake Barry's hand. "You must be Kurt's friend from Dalton, Barry, right?" He nodded.   
  
"Yes, nice to meet you, Mr. Hummel. Thank you for having me here." Burt’s handshake is firm and his smile is welcoming. He feels the same fatherly energy that he missed with Joe and his own dad.   
  
“It’s not a problem, Barry. Nice to meet you.” They sit down and Carole brings out the food, setting it on the table.   
  
“I made lasagna; I hope that’s okay?” She asked him as she set it down.   
  
“Yeah, it smells great.” Barry responded. Food was served to everyone and then Burt and Carole decided that they would initiate some small talk.   
  
“So, Barry, Kurt said that you go to Dalton, you met when he transferred last year?” Burt asked him unsure because he hadn’t heard about Barry until now.   
  
“I actually transferred in this year but we ended up meeting because I joined the warblers and Kurt is still friends with a lot of them.” Barry answered without giving any of the teenage high school drama that none of them wanted to admit to. Kurt added on his own tidbit.   
  
“Blaine invited the warblers to come see West Side Story after he transferred and so we ended up meeting him when he’d just joined them. Everyone was talking about Blaine after because they missed him, so Barry decided to introduce himself because he was the only one who didn’t know him.” Thankfully he stuck to the same civil version of the story.   
  
Carole chimed in then. “Oh, so you’re in Glee too? I guess we’ll get to see you perform in a few weeks at regionals. That’ll be nice.” The statement was kept neutral because it was obvious the two glee clubs would be competing but Carole didn’t want to discourage anyone. “Do you participate in any other clubs, Barry?”   
  
Finn had been quiet for a while and decided to pipe up at that moment because he happened to know the answer to that particular question and it felt awkward just listening. “Oh, yeah, you’re on the lacrosse team, right?”   
  
Barry nodded as he finished chewing the food in his mouth. “Yeah, I’m the Captain for the lacrosse team. I was actually kind of surprised to be good at it. I didn’t play sports before I transferred but then my roommate was trying out and didn’t want to do it alone and so he taught me the basics, and I just picked it up. After the first few weeks, the coach picked me as captain because I was good at leading the team during plays. He was shocked when I admitted I’d learned mostly from watching videos and reading up on lacrosse.”   
  
“Well, it’s always good to try something new, you never know when you might actually be good at something. I mean, Kurt was a pretty good kicker for the football team even though he’d only been interested in the arts before.” Burt commented on it, which surprised Barry.   
  
“I didn’t know you were on the football team Kurt.” But he shook his head in response to the statement.   
  
“I was only on it for like one game though, but I did help the team win. It’s just that a lot of the other guys felt awkward about it so I ended up leaving after.” He didn’t bother to elaborate on it, but Barry understood because he hadn’t played sports until Dalton for similar reasons.   
  
“So, what classes do you like Barry?” Carole decided to move right on past the previous subject.   
  
Dinner managed to continue on in its peaceful truce, Barry talking about his classes, nerding out a bit with some science facts, and answering some curious questions from Carole and Burt. Finn, Sam, and Kurt all jumped into the conversation at points about various ongoing dinner conversations about what was happening at school, glee club's weekly assignment, or different family affairs. At some point it devolved into favorite songs, which was more of between the glee members at that point.   
  
“What about you Barry? What do you say your favorite song would be?” Sam asked him after bickering with Finn over the merits of another song.   
  
“Actually, I tend to prefer musicals, so mine would be Singing in the Rain.” Barry responded.   
  
“Hey, that’s Mr.Shue’s favorite musical. It’s kind of an old one, why do you like it?” Finn asked him.   
  
He hesitated as he answered. “It was my mom’s favorite, we used to watch it all the time together when I was younger. She loved Frank Sinatra.” Kurt glanced between them a little worried at that point and Finn stopped for a moment, quickly remembering what Kurt had talked about on the phone. Carole looked at Burt and they seemed to have a silent conversation. Everyone’s plates were mostly empty so it was decided that dinner was over.   
  
“Hey Finn, do you want to help clear up the table? I think everyone’s pretty much done from the looks of it.” The boys all quietly helped clean up the table and dishes from dinner and then Finn and Sam excused themselves to head up to play video games. Kurt and Barry were both aware that the two adults obviously wanted to discuss what was going on but they all were putting off the conversation. Carole put down a drink in front of Barry and tried to give him a warm smile, putting her hand on his.   
  
Burt decided to rip the proverbial band aid off the tension of the conversation. “Kurt’s told me that you’re having some problems at home, would you like to talk about it, Barry?”   
  
“It’s kind of complicated.” The words are all he can come up with after a while of thinking it over.   
  
“Don’t worry, just take your time.” Carole coaxed him as he continued to run his thumb against the rim of the mug that she’d given him, not having taken a sip.   
  
“You probably already know part of the story; I really haven’t met anyone who hasn’t.” He bit his lip and looked between the two. “When I was eleven, my mom was murdered, Nora Allen.” The immediate recognition was on their faces, he avoided looking toward Kurt whose stomach suddenly sank as if gutted. He’d purposely withheld it until now because it had always been a dark story. “I was there when it happened, they thought that my dad did it because I couldn’t explain what I saw, I still can’t. It’s a lot more complicated, what happened that night, but a lot of people have tried to convince me that my dad is guilty but I just can’t so I’ve just accepted it.”   
  
He knew he was rambling and stopped for a moment, no one said anything so he continued on. “I was taken in by my best friend’s dad, he’s a cop and he ended up being one of the ones called to the scene that night. He just took me home, there wasn’t any question about it, even though he was already a single parent raising a kid by himself, he decided to foster me. He fostered me up until about ten months ago.”   
  
“What happened?” Carole seemed to find her voice again while Burt remained quiet but paid steadfast attention.   
  
“Joe, my foster dad, was investigating some politician I don’t know who, but they had started threatening him. These people would show up harassing us, someone broke into the house, went through the mail, vandalized things, and then they called CPS. We thought everything would be fine but my feelings about my dad’s conviction has always been an issue. I’ve had court mandated therapy trying to convince me otherwise and everyone at school knew, so I got bullied about, being the son of a murder. After CPS showed up, I ended up in the hospital because of one of my bullies. They took me away because they felt Joe wasn’t doing enough to prevent it.”   
  
“Then I went back into the system and I got adopted by the Smythe’s, except they didn’t adopt me because they wanted a son, they adopted me to hide their failing marriage and wanted to pretend they had a son that was theirs. They want me to be this made up ideal of how their son would be and they refuse to acknowledge anything about my life previous. They won’t even let me have any contact with them and I can’t keep pretended to be a Smythe, I just want to go back to my foster family.” The tears were streaming down his face and he put his head in his hands, his body trembling with exhaustion.   
  
“It’s going to be okay. I promise you; this will get better; I don’t know how but we’ll try and make it better.” Burt rubbed a hand up and down Barry’s back as he tried to comfort him as he struggled to keep his emotions together.   
  
Kurt walked over finally, after having heard the full story and seeing the pieces it left Barry, he wished he could just magically make it all better but he couldn’t, so he sat down next to him with a hand on his arm lightly and just let him know he was there. The four of them sat there in silence for a long while as Barry let all of his repressed emotions wash over him and eventually sat up.   
  
“Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll show you the guest room.” Kurt spoke seeing how tired he had become. Barry just followed him, letting Kurt grab his things and take him to the room. The bed was already set with clean sheets, pillow, and comforter on the bed all made up. “There’s another bathroom at the end of the hall if you need to use it.”   
  
They both stood there wondering how to address the elephant in the room, or if they should say anything at all. Kurt felt that he had to say something. “I know that I don’t know what you're going through but I know what it's like to lose a mom, so even if you don’t want to talk about anything else, maybe we can talk about our moms.” It was a poor attempt at trying to communicate with him but it seemed to be just enough to him that Barry felt he could say something even meaningless instead of bottling everything up.   
  
Kurt left him in the room, and he shrugged his clothes off down to his boxers and slid under the covers, letting the exhaustion settle in as he blocked out any challenges he might face in the morning. At the very least, he wasn’t Sebastian Smythe for a night.   
  
In the hallway, Finn and Sam unsurely stepped out into the hallway after hearing Kurt leave Barry in the guest room. “How much of it did you hear?” He wasn’t unaware of the two’s tendencies.   
  
“We may have heard all of it.” Finn admitted being ashamed about intruding in on the private conversation. “But, if you need us to have heard none of it, we can do that.” Sam quickly nodded in an agreement.   
  
“Just don’t say anything unless he says something, okay?” Kurt was sure that he wouldn’t sleep with all the thoughts running through his head, but he went to his room and attempted anyway so that he could make sense of the crazy week that he had had.   
  
Meanwhile, Burt and Carole discussed Barry’s situation and what they should do about it while everyone else slept.   
  
In the morning, Barry cracked open the door of the guest room peering out into the empty hall. He was nervous about how the others would act around him knowing his backstory after he had basically spilled it all out in an emotional breakdown. Slowly he made his way downstairs where he could hear kitchen pans being moved and started to smell the scent of food waft upward.   
  
He reaches the bottom of the stairs and peers into the kitchen. Carole and Kurt are actively moving about making a large breakfast while Burt sat drinking a cup of coffee in a half awake state. Barry stood there not sure how to announce his presence when Carole looked up feeling his stare.   
  
"Good morning Barry. You can take a seat if you like, breakfast is almost done. You'll be able to get first dibs before Finn and Sam get to it, they're not awake yet." She informs him, smiling gently.   
  
Kurt looks up at her words and smiles at him as well. "Did you sleep okay, Barry?” Barry nods in response after which Kurt turns back to the food he was in charge of, satisfied by his answer. He decides to sit down at the table with Burt while they work on breakfast. He’s sitting there awkwardly for a little while when Burt pipes up from his seat.   
  
“Do you need the Wi-fi password for your phone? I know the other boys are constantly on their phones checking social media and whatever while they wait to eat.” He offers politely wondering if Barry was just trying to be polite himself by not asking.   
  
“Uh, no. I can’t really use my phone for anything besides texting or calling.” Barry admits fiddling with his hands.   
  
“Oh, do you have a flip phone still? I know not everyone has a smartphone yet, I didn’t even have one until after I ran for congress. The boys still have to show me how to use it from time to time.” Burt asks curiously. He was aware that practically everyone at Dalton had smartphones because their parents were well off and could afford to, so it was strange that having been adopted by the state attorney that Barry didn’t own one.   
  
“Actually, my adoptive parents put controls on my phone and laptop, so that I couldn’t contact my foster family. I can’t use most social media anyway so it’s kind of pointless to carry around constantly.” He shrugs off the fact. Carole paused in her own cooking to give Burt a look of concern that he similarly felt.   
  
Having been a single parent for a long time, he had turned to parenting books for help and most noticeably they often talked about respecting your child’s privacy. It was proven to be damaging to a child’s mental health and their relationship with their parents. He’d also read some horror stories in the news of parents that had used those types of apps beyond their intended use of protecting their child. He had opted out of using those apps in favor of trusting his son. In this case he was more concerned at how it affected Barry.   
  
“Hey, Barry, what would you like to drink?” Carole asked, cutting Burt off from his thoughts on the matter.   
  
He turned around to look at the options that she had pulled out of the fridge. “Orange juice is good.” She nodded and started pouring out the drink into a glass for him.   
  
“You guys can start helping yourself to food.” Kurt says as he finishes pulling biscuits out of the oven. They all grab plates and start to pick out what they wanted to eat before sitting down at the table. A few minutes after they start eating a tired Finn and Sam emerge from their bedrooms, the smell of food waking them up and they join them at the table.   
  
It’s a quiet morning as they eat breakfast, but it reminds Barry of being with Joe and Iris. Saturday mornings were usually quiet at the West house as they were all tired from the week’s stress. Joe would silently sip coffee and read the morning paper while him and Iris would stumble around tiredly trying to figure out what to have for breakfast. It was the nice feeling of being surrounded by family that was absent at the Smythe house.   
  
Once they had finished eating, he joined them in cleaning up the mess from breakfast. “So, do you boys have any plans for today?” Burt mentions as he washes his dish at the sink.   
  
“Probably just going to play video games with Sam.” Finn says as that’s their usual routine on Saturdays.   
  
“And do your homework right?” Carole chimes in reminding them that the household rules were that homework was to be done first so that it wouldn’t be happening at the last minute which was a bad habit of Finn’s particularly.   
  
“Uh, yeah, homework.” Finn replies in a rather unenthusiastic tone.   
  
“You know I could help you guys if you want to. I was planning on doing my homework anyway because I didn’t bring much with me. I’ve actually done quite a bit of tutoring.” Barry offers offhandedly, when it’s obvious the other boys consider the idea of homework is painful.   
  
“Hey, maybe you’ll have better luck with them, because I’ve tried and it hasn’t worked so well with them.” Kurt teasingly remarks to the two. “I think we’re all probably going to relax inside today anyway, I didn’t have any particular plans this weekend to begin with.”   
  
“Well, I’ve got a few things to take care of today and Carole has a shift at the hospital today, so we probably won’t be home until dinner.” Burt informs them as he finishes cleaning up his own dishes. Once they’re done cleaning up everyone gets ready for the day, getting dressed and taking showers while Burt and Carole take leave of the house.   
  
Once they’ve finished, they manage to convene at the kitchen table with their homework at hand, some more begrudging than others, and begin to work on it. Barry finds himself helping both Finn and Sam more than working on his own homework for the first hour but he manages to help them understand their homework despite their initial grievances about it.   
  
“Dude, you’re really good at explaining this stuff. I wish my teachers explained stuff the way you do, it’d be way easier.” Finn thanked him causing Barry to nervously run a hand through his hair.   
  
“It’s no problem, I enjoy learning it so I’m always happy to explain.” Barry reassures Finn, then turns to Sam. “Also Sam, you should really talk to your counselor about setting up a 504 plan so that they can better accommodate you for your dyslexia.”  
  
“Cool, I’ll talk to Miss.Pillsbury about it. Hey do you want to play video games with us?” Sam suggests. “We can play Mario Kart even though Kurt wins most of the time.”  
  
“Sure.”

Having finished their homework, the four of them played until Burt and Carole came home from work. They were surprised to find all of the boys sitting together in the living room when they arrived.

“Hey boys, you have fun today?” Carole inquires as she takes off her coat.

“Yeah, we’ve been playing Mario Kart since we finished homework and Barry’s good enough to play against Kurt. I even won because a blue shell accidently took out everyone at one point.” Finn remarks excitedly.

“Wow, that’s a first. You guys never want to play against him.” Burt says. 

“I think they only wanted to keep playing because they wanted to see me lose. It’s a rarity for them.” Kurt remarks.

They finish playing their last game and then set about helping get ready for the night’s dinner. It’s much more comfortable and casual than it had been the night before, the tension of the previous night having been broken. Still there’s a lingering sense of foreboding conversation coming.

It turns out that Barry is right, when Burt and Carole sit him down in the living room afterwards but it’s not for a terrible reason.

“So, I’ve done some talking with some friends in regards to legal advice for your situation Barry.” Burt starts the conversation off. “The best approach would be to get a child advocate and have them appeal your case on your behalf, they can petition the court to have you removed from your adoptive family. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll go back to your foster family but it can get you away from the situation you’re in now.”

Barry nods, absorbing the information. “I want to try.”

“Okay, then we’ll try it.” Burt pauses to grab something. “In the meantime, I would like to help get back in contact with your foster family. I don’t agree with what you’ve been going through, so we thought that this may help.”

Burt hands Barry a box for a cell phone, recently purchased and unopened.

“You didn’t need to do that, I mean it must have cost you-” He quickly finds himself speechless that they would make the effort to buy him a cell phone, free from the Smythe’s prying eyes, at their own expense.

“It didn’t really, sweetie. We had the option to get a free phone with our family plan and it’s barely ten dollars a month to add you on. I think it’s worth it if you get to speak with your best friend again. That’s all we want.” Carole reassures him.

“I-Thank you, you don’t know how much this means to me.” Barry feels the tears streaming down his face at the thought and both Burt and Carole comfort him.

Kurt is barely holding his own tears in, standing off to the side in the back of the room. He’s slightly aware that neither Finn or Sam have left the immediate area, listening in.

“Do you want to call them right now? Or maybe you’d like some privacy?” He suggests, and Kurt realizes that he’s surprised Barry as he turns to notice that Kurt has been standing there.

“Yeah, it’s fine, I think they’d probably like to thank you guys for helping me. I just need to get this set up.” Barry says and then looks at the box in his hands. It’s quite overwhelming, the thought of speaking with Iris and Joe again.

“Do you need any help?” Kurt suggests, seeing the hesitation.

“Uh, yeah, actually. I just realized that I’ve never set up my own cell phone before. I didn’t have one before I went to live with the Smythe’s and they did it for me. It shouldn’t be that hard right?” Barry rambles a bit to distract himself from the feelings of- excitement? Anticipation? Fear? He wasn’t sure.

“It’s usually pretty easy, yeah.” Kurt helps him unravel all the packaging and figure out where to insert the sim card and within a few minutes the phone is on and functional, ready for use.

Still his heart seems to be pounding.

“Do you still remember their number?” Burt asks as Barry stares at the phone still.

“Yeah, it should still be the same.” 

Barry punches in the familiar number with trepidation and reads it back to himself once for confirmation even though he knows it by heart and finally hits the call button. He puts it up to his ear and listens to it ring. It feels like forever. He honestly hopes that someone is home to pick up the phone because if the voicemail picked up he wouldn’t know what to do. God, what should he say regardless? Maybe he should have prepared himself first. Who’s going to pick up first? Joe or Iris? A million thoughts are running through his head.

Then it picks up.

“Hello.” The deep voice of Joe West comes through the speakers and Barry’s breath catches in his throat.

“Hello?” Joe repeats again when he doesn’t respond, and Barry panics.

“Joe.” Is the only thing Barry manages to get out.

“Speaking, who is this?” He can tell that Joe recognizes his voice but seems to be having trouble placing it. 

“It’s me, it’s Barry.” His voice trembles.

“Barr.” The way he says Barry’s nickname is all Barry needs to hear to know that Joe has missed him deeply.

“I thought-they said, how-why are you calling? Is everything okay? Are you okay? Do you need help? What can I do?” Everything comes out at a hundred miles an hour as Joe tries to gain some composure on his end.

“I’m fine, right now at least. It’s kind of complicated. But I had some help getting back in touch with you. I want to come back home, to central, with you and Iris.” Barry tells him.

“We do too, Barr. Oh, wait- Iris! Iris!” He listens to Joe call for Iris from wherever she is and in the background of call he hears her voice grow.

“-hat is it? Who’s on the phone? You left the pot on the stove boiling.” 

There’s some sound of shuffling and he can tell the phone is being passed off to Iris who clearly is clueless.

“Uh-Hello?”

“Hi, Iris.” 

“Oh my god! Barry!” There’s a mess of screaming and excitement, loud in his ear but he doesn’t pull the phone away.

“Barry, we’ve missed you so much.” Iris says getting choked up as she speaks.

“I know, I have too. I’m going to try and fight to come home. A friend’s parents are going to help with going to court. They’re actually why I could finally call you.” Barry starts to explain to them.

“That’s great Barr.” Joe says, Iris having put the phone on speaker. 

Barry spends another hour on the phone talking with them and then they talk with Burt and Carole shortly. He promises to call them again tomorrow and then gives them the phone number for his new cell phone.

“Thank you, again. I really appreciate all you’re doing for me.” He can’t help but thank them again.

“You shouldn’t need to, Barry. We’re just doing what any parent should. Why don’t you go and get some rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” Burt tells him and Barry nods, then heads upstairs.

Kurt stays behind to talk with his dad.

“You really are the best dad.” Kurt remarks, surprising him with a hug.

“Thanks, buddy. We’re going to figure this out for your friend, don’t worry.” 


	2. The First Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drama is afoot at William Mckinley and Barry has his day in family court.

Barry feels as if there should be some impending doom when he returns to Dalton on Monday. There was this expectation that the Smythes’ would know of his deceit, as if they could sense him disobeying them. But so far nothing had come of his weekend stay at the Hummel household. They’d been too uncaring to realize that he wasn’t even supposed to be at Dalton that weekend.

Still, he had a lingering unease. Burt had told him that he’d set up a meeting with a lawyer that specialized with family law. Apparently one of Rachel Berry’s fathers was a lawyer who practiced in that field and Burt was going to discuss the matter with him and see how he felt about it or if he could recommend another lawyer who would be better suited for his case. This meant that they would soon find out that he intended to sully their reputation with the truth.

He glanced at his new phone to look at the texts he’d received from Iris this morning, wishing him a good day and promising to call him later. Barry desperately wants that conversation to be in person and not over a secret phone, several hundred miles away. But if they can manage this, if he can manage to get through this, then it won’t be like that for long. He can survive this, if it means going home, he can do this.

Meanwhile, Kurt is walking into glee club where one aforementioned Rachel Berry is loudly arguing with Finn.

“-What do you mean you won’t tell me? Sebastian Smythe, head of our revival glee club was at your house this morning and he’s probably plotting revenge as we speak! Yesterday was probably all for show so that we’d let our guard down!” 

Kurt’s stomach sinks as he hears the words. Rachel must have intended to come by the house this morning but instead saw Barry leaving.

“Not everything is about glee club Rachel! It doesn’t matter!” Finn was not breaking under his girlfriend’s pressure, he understood that Barry’s home life and issues were a private matter. Not something that needed to be shared among the gossipy members of the New Directions.

Rachel turned away from Finn in frustration and spotted Kurt still in the doorway.

“Kurt! What was Smythe doing at your house this morning? He has to be planning something, I just knew that he was lying to us! He’s still being underhanded as always. He’s even tricked Finn with some garbage. He’s defending him! I can’t believe it!”

It had completely slipped his mind that the other glee members might notice if some of them had started to be friendly towards the one person that they’d been vehemently against for the last few weeks. Kurt had not prepared for this and hadn’t asked Barry about what to do in such a situation but he wasn’t going to betray his personal matters like that. Especially to Rachel.

“Rachel, this is none of your business. It has nothing to do with glee club, regionals, or any nefarious plots. I promise you.” Kurt cuts her off from her long tirade.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t also thought of the consequences of what would happen should his boyfriend knew that Barry had left his house this morning.

“Kurt, what’s going on? None of this makes sense, why are you defending Sebastian? Why are you guys not telling us why he was at your house this morning? Is he blackmailing you guys?” Blaine asks, bewildered by their behavior.

“Listen, he needed help with a personal matter and we are respecting his privacy by not telling you what that matter is about. Do you understand?” Kurt explains with as much vagueness as he possibly can.

“Why in the world would you help him Kurt? After all the things he’s done to us? To you and Blaine. Why would you possibly help him?” Rachel yells at him before Blaine can even respond to him.

Kurt had been keeping a level head until that moment, but Rachel was really trying his patient right now.

“Maybe it’s because I’m a decent person Rachel! You know not someone who can’t comprehend why someone may need help from another person and may not want all of their personal problems blabbed around like it’s gossip!” He finally yells at her.

This sends Rachel sputtering. “Well, I- Kurt, I can’t believe that you would say something like that to me! You could’ve been nicer about it! I don’t understand why you're being so secretive about it!”

Immediately after she gets the final word in, Rachel storms off to save face from his accusations. Kurt turns back to Blaine, who’d been waiting since Rachel interrupted them.

“I’m sorry, I know things are complicated right now and I didn’t mean to keep anything from you. But it really is a personal matter that I don’t feel comfortable sharing until I have permission. It was something that just happened over the weekend, I didn’t think to text anyone about it.” Kurt explains as bluntly as possible.

“That’s alright Kurt, I just hope you know what you’re doing.” Blaine looks away awkwardly. “Listen I have to go to class, I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later.” Kurt responds and turns to look at Finn and Sam, who from the looks of it can also feel the shitstorm of drama brewing within the glee club already.

Kurt just hopes that they can get through the day.  
By the end of the day, practically everyone in the glee club had confronted each of them trying to figure out what was going on. Kurt was trying to shut down the speculation but it really wasn’t working out all that well. His only saving grace was that there was no glee club afterschool today and Kurt was able to avoid everyone on his way out.

There’s a sigh of relief as he drives off to meet and pick up Sebastian from Dalton. His dad had already confirmed that Hiram Berry would be willing to represent Barry as his Guardian ad Litem and that they’d discuss the details after school.

When Kurt arrives at Dalton, he parks his car towards the back and then texts Barry that he’s here. A few minutes later he receives a text back and then drives to the entrance that Barry says he’s at. He pulls in front and unlocks the doors for him.

Barry hops in the car and buckles his seatbelt before turning to look at Kurt, then frowns. “Is something wrong?”

Kurt didn’t realize that his ire was written on his face.

“Kind of. It’s a Rachel problem. She saw you leave our house this morning and she’s been throwing around wild accusations because no one is telling her why you were there.” Kurt explains to him.

Barry winces as he hears what happened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause anymore problems for your glee club.” He apologizes quickly.

“It’s not your fault.” Kurt is quick to reassure him. “Rachel’s just too nosy for her own good, she would’ve found something to rant about this morning either way. She just wants to gossip.”

Barry nods nervously and the ride back to Lima is quiet besides the low hum of the radio. Finally they pull into the driveway and Kurt can already see Hiram’s car parked in front of the house. Kurt looks toward Barry, who is more nervous than just from the silence of the car ride.

“You okay?” He asks and Barry bites his lip.

“Yeah, it’s just-” Barry not sure exactly what the feeling is. “-I’m worried about a lot. About what if this goes wrong and what’ll happen if we do this and it doesn’t work out. I just-”

Kurt places his hand on Barry’s. 

“And it could go right. You could be with your family again. Just trust me, okay?”

Barry nods and they step out of the car and into the house.

“I’m home, with Barry.” Kurt announces looking around for his dad and Rachel’s. They turn out to be discussing something in the kitchen.

“Hey boys, how was school?” Burt asks when he sees them.

“The usual.” Kurt replies in order to avoid mentioning Rachel’s over reaction this morning in front of her father.

“Oh, so Rachel trying to figure out if she can take out a restraining order on rival glee clubs is a regular thing?” Hiram asks nonchalantly.

Kurt freezes and whips his head up in his direction.

“She did what!” He was shocked, well actually he isn’t, it is a very Rachel thing to do.

“Don’t worry, I’ve deterred the thought of restraining orders for now. I had already talked with Burt this morning and basically figured out she was overreacting.” He waves it off. “So anyway, you must Barry.”

Hiram reaches out to shake his hand, which Barry takes with a bit of uncertainty. 

“Um, yeah. So how are we going to do this?” The question had been gnawing at him.

Hiram can see how nervous Barry is about this and this is not the first case he’s had with a child in an unhealthy home environment, afraid to tell the truth about what’s going on in fear of retaliation against them.

“You don’t have to worry Barry, we’re going to protect you. I promise you.” He’s not sure that he can guarantee it but for now, Barry is willing to have hope. 

For the sake of Lawyer and Client privileges, the two of them go off to a separate room in order to discuss Barry’s case.

“I know that this may be hard Barry, but you will have to discuss what has happened with the Smythe’s so that we have the best chance of succeeding in court. I suspect that there’s a lot more going on than you’ve let on so far?” Hiram asks him. 

Barry grimaces because he knows that talking in court will open him up to scrutiny over his belief in his father’s innocence and his overall trustworthiness and reliability. But he’s never let that stop him before. He shouldn’t let it now.

“Like how they’ve tried to completely erase my identity as Barry Allen and make me pretend that I’m Sebastian, their biological son who has been living in France until now.” Barry mentions, Burt had probably already brought this up to him.  
“Yes, would you mind explaining how they reinforced your behavior and how they reacted when you didn’t act as Sebastian.” Hiram asks him more directly this time.

Barry takes a steady breath as he recalls his first few months at the Smythe household.

“I wasn’t allowed to leave the house at all when I first arrived, I was basically confined to a single room for the first few weeks there.” Barry admits, it’s the first time he’s said that fact to anyone since he’d first left the Smythe household. Talking about it brings a rise of fear.

“What was the room like, the room they kept you in?” Hiram is careful about his words, to not push but also trying to remain neutral.

“It really didn’t have much in it, I think it was used as storage but had been a guest room because there was a bathroom attached.” He describes.

“Was there furniture, like a bed or desk? And were you allowed to use the bathroom?” Hiram inquires again.

“There was just a bed frame and a dresser, there wasn’t a mattress when I first got there and they let me use the bathroom sometimes.” Barry watches as Hiram stiffens listening to him. To his benefit he doesn’t react otherwise.

“Can you elaborate? Like how long did it take for them to give you a mattress and when did they not let you use the bathroom?”

“They didn’t put a mattress in the room until just before they started letting me go to other parts of the house. I think it might have been the week before, I’m not sure. And they-” Barry hesitates because he knows how bad this is about to sound. “-they would lock the bathroom when they didn’t like how I was behaving.”

Barry sees the look on his face and looks away. Hiram can only just manage to keep an even tone with Barry. He’s not angry with him, just for what he’s hearing.

“Can you give some examples?”

Barry has stopped looking at him at this point but he manages to regain the strength to look back up. “When I wouldn’t respond to the name Sebastian, or if I wasn’t reacting how they wanted, like I was really their son. Or if I spoke against them. That’s when they would lock it.”

“And what would you do when they locked it?” He really doesn’t want to have to ask but it’s important.

“The only option I really had, and they didn’t like that either.” Barry looks away in shame.

Hiram grimaces at the thought. And the implications.

“Did they use this system a lot with other things? Besides the mattress and the bathroom.” He asks.

“They did it with everything practically, leaving the room, the house, for clothing, and for food. I gave in to everything they wanted eventually. I-” Barry cuts himself off because he realizes that he's crying, with big shuddering breaths. He’s ashamed. These people broke him, in ways that all the people who believed his dad murdered his mom hadn’t. He didn’t feel brave, he felt hollow.

“It’s okay Barry, you’re allowed to feel like this. They hurt you, this should have never happened to you. But it did and now you’re living with the consequences and we’re going to help you through it.”

Barry nods through shuddering breaths and then asks “Can we take a break from talking about that, just for now?”

“Sure, Barry. Why don’t we talk about the court process instead?” Hiram suggests to him and Barry agrees.

They spend the rest of their time discussing the paperwork that has to be filed for court and the soonest that they can expect to have a court hearing and what plans they’ll have in place when his adoptive parents are served the court notice.

“Okay, so I’ll be reaching out to your foster father so that we can work on his side and then we’ll be filing probably on Wednesday and I’ll try to have the first hearing set for this Friday. We’ll have to notify your school ahead of time that I’ll be requesting an emergency protection order and arrange for you to be excused ahead of time.”

Hiram lists off the things that need to be done.

“I think we are set for now and I think I can smell dinner. It smells delicious, I bet you’re hungry.” 

Barry is more exhausted than anything but he probably is hungry and agrees anyway.

“Why don’t you go freshen up?” Hiram suggests.

Barry heads to the nearby bathroom and he grimaces as he sees his face. He looks terrible, eyes slightly puffy, darkened, and slightly red. His face is pale as well. He rinses his face with cold water to try and alleviate some of it but it only works partially. Once he’s taken a moment to collect himself he steps back out.

Kurt is the first one to see Barry as he walks out into the living room area.  
“Are you okay?” He asks concerned as he sees the exhaustion on Barry’s face.

“I will be.” Barry gives a half hearted reassurance. He felt that he had a long week ahead of himself.

The week is as slow and painful as Barry predicts, maybe even more so. It’s hard to gauge. He talks more with Hiram and it takes its toll on him. He doesn’t like discussing what happened at the Smythe household but it’s necessary. Painfully so. The Warblers text him when he doesn’t appear to hang out with them in the practice room after school for the second day and claims to be bogged down with homework. 

He’s not sure how to explain what’s going on to them. Sure Dalton has a great anti-bullying policy but that doesn’t stop people from ostracizing you. And they don’t know the truth about his life. But it’s going to come out and soon. Richard Smythe is the state attorney and gossip spreads around here like fire. It’s one of the only things they have out here in the middle of nowhere Ohio.

Wednesday comes and Barry gets the text from Hiram that they’ll have a court hearing this Friday and that the emergency order of protection is in place. He shut off his other phone this morning in preparation so that neither of the Smythe’s can call him. He removed the battery as an extra precaution. They likely haven’t been served yet but it’s better to be safe than sorry. 

However, there’s no lack of chaos being uprooted today.

The New Directions are still wary and suspicious and they’ve come sniffing around. Specifically Blaine has started texting his former glee club asking around about him and his behavior; dropping crumbs of information about him interacting with Kurt. Although he’s a friend, and always a Warbler, the group chooses not to respond to Blaine but they do choose to confront Sebastian.

“Hey Sebastian, are you free after school today? We need to have a warbler meeting.” Barry should have known something was up then when Wes came to tell him that.

The Warblers are all waiting ahead of him and they get quiet once he enters the room and he has half a mind to run.

“Sebastian, we’re becoming a bit concerned.” Thad is the one to start their confrontation, Barry is sure that he drew the short stick because he doesn’t look anymore happy about this than he is.

“You haven’t been acting like yourself lately and we’ve heard that you’ve been seeking help from Kurt for an unknown reason. I want you to know that we aren’t here to judge you but we are concerned that you didn’t come to us first.”

The room is still silent and Barry can see that everyone is watching him.

“I have, you’re not wrong. It’s complicated and personal. Kurt offered me help because I needed it and he just happened to be there, I didn’t intentionally leave you guys out. I’m just not sure how to talk about it, like I said it’s complicated.” Barry knows that at least half of that is bullshit and they might too but he wasn’t expecting Blaine to start snooping around. 

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Trent offers, trying to give him support. 

“I’m honestly not sure.” What can he say? Don't hate me when you find out my dad’s in jail for murdering my mom and I look crazy for defending his innocence. Yeah that’ll go over well.

“Just let us know, if you do, okay.” David tells him instead and then there’s an awkward moment before Barry decides it’s alright for him to extract himself from this mess.

He gets halfway to his dorm, already planning to take a hot shower and then throw himself into his homework to try and distract himself, when those plans go out the window.

“Hey, Smythe!”

It’s the only warning he gets before Santana Lopez slides in front of him, effectively blocking him from escape when she does.

“What the hell is going on with you? Listen, I’m going to skip all the theatrics that everyone else is adding on and I’m going straight to the facts.”

She’s getting straight to the point and not letting him have a word edgewise.

“I know that you stayed at the Hummel household this weekend, I also know that you were there again on Monday and for whatever reason one of Rachel’s dads was there at the same time. And for some reason, they’re all keeping some big secret for you. I don’t know what’s going on but Rachel is losing her absolute shit over it and I need it to stop, so I need your little meerkat face to stop fucking it all up! Do you understand?”

Barry has no energy left in him to put up his Sebastian façade and respond in the snarky way Santana expects from their interactions.

“Listen, I honestly don’t give a shit! I don’t owe anybody anything about my personal life and I certainly won’t do it just because some people don’t think that’s a good enough reason. Tell them I said to fuck off because I don’t care.”

Santana is just shocked enough by it that Barry is able to move past her and book it to his dorm room. Moments later as he’s coming down from his angry rant, Kurt’s name pops up on his phone. He takes a moment to calm himself before he answers.  
“I assume your calling to warn me about Santana because you’re too late.” Barry forgoes saying any greeting.

“Santana showed up at Dalton? What the hell? Does no one in our club understand anything I say. I swear to god! Ugh!” Is Kurt’s immediate response. 

“I was actually calling because the Warblers let me know that Blaine decided to go behind my back to ask about what was going on. I had explicitly asked him to trust me on this but apparently he doesn’t.”

Barry can tell that Kurt is fuming and definitely just came from his own shouting match with Blaine over the matter.

“I’m already well aware of that too because just prior to my confrontation with Santana and I had a very awkward attempt of an intervention where the Warblers asked me if I was okay. I know they were trying to be helpful but god was that painful.” Barry sighs and then flops onto his bed.

“I’m sorry that my glee club has no common decency or at least a lack of brain cells.” Kurt sighs as well.

“It’s not your fault, it’s just this whole situation sucks.” 

Maybe somewhere out there, there’s a world where his entire life didn’t go to shit.

“It does. Did Hiram at least get a court hearing set?” Kurt asks, trying to move away from the discussion of his glee club’s antics.

“Yeah, for Friday like we planned. They also gave us the emergency protection order. Whoever is serving the summons is supposed to notify Hiram when it happens, I imagine that shits going to hit the roof when that happens. I turned my other phone off in advance.” Barry informs him.

“That’s good and you’ll be able to finally see your foster dad then. That’s good right? As long as you can get through the rest of this shitshow of a week, it’ll be worth it.”

The reminder makes him smile, Barry had talked with Joe and Iris practically everyday since Saturday but it wasn’t the same. But being able to see them in person, it was worth every ounce of the court process. And speaking of Iris, he was supposed to text her after he was done for today.

“Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I’ve got to go now, I planned on talking with Iris and I was supposed to text her already.” 

“Of course, tell her I said hello.” Kurt bids him farewell and they hang up. Now he just has to figure out how to get the New Directions of his back.  
At school the next day, Kurt has plans to confront Santana over her blatant disregard in confronting Barry but is surprised that she finds him first.

“Look, I already know that you’re going to come and yell at me after what I did yesterday and I’ll own up to it. I don’t know what’s going on but with the way Smythe reacted to me yesterday, I think I understand that it’s a little more serious. As long it has nothing to do with regionals, I’m gonna leave that shit alone.” Santana in fact has a whole speech prepared for him it seems.

“I was not expecting that to be honest, you haven’t done anything with the real Santana have you?” Kurt looks at her with well deserved skepticism.

“Listen, I know I’m a sneaky and snooping ass bitch sometimes, but I can also put two and two together when what I’m putting together is leading to something I don’t wanna mess with. So I’m gonna pretend I don’t have even the slightest clue as to what might be going on, got it?” 

Kurt hesitates for a moment but then decides that this is probably the better option.

“Loud and clear.”

With that confirmation, Santana walks off to probably stir up chaos somewhere else. Kurt’s not actually sure what she knows or thinks she knows. But he suspects that she’s not too far off and isn’t going to try and correct her on anything.

Rachel, however, is another matter. She’s been coming up with wilder and wilder reasons for Sebastian Smythe to be around the Hummel household and was ready to bust a gasket yesterday when she realized her own father had a hand in this mess. Unlike Santana she probably couldn’t piece together why her father might be assisting a teenager with a private matter when he practices family law. If she can’t see past her own nose that’s her fault.

She had, however, come out with all sorts of conspiracies ranging from some sort of affair he was having with Sebastian to straight up felony crimes and blackmail. They were in high school, not her latest tv drama obsession dammit.

Kurt is also wary about what she’s up to now, she’d made another spectacle in glee club this morning and he hadn’t heard a peep from her since. Since Monday, she’d been hounding him for an explanation at every turn, now nothing. He had every right to be suspicious. He’d seen how many Rachel Berry plots played out in real time. 

He ended up off handedly texting Finn about her whereabouts after not seeing her at lunch, which was fruitless. Him and Rachel had not actually been on speaking terms the last few days because she was giving him the silent treatment for withholding information from her. Finn seemed to actually be keeping his boundaries and wasn’t attempting to be the first to fix it. Good for him but Kurt really wished he had some insight into her plans right now.

But he also can’t blame Finn either. Blaine had been sucked into Rachel’s shenanigans and they weren’t exactly on speaking terms either. A lot of issues that revolved around Barry were being brought up. Kurt’s former animosity with him, Blaine’s flirt not flirting, the night at scandals, the stolen setlist, and of course the slushie. Everything that could be used to potentially sway him.

Kurt wasn’t actually angry with Barry over those things anymore. He knew he’d been acting out and picking fights because of the Smythes, and the slushie had been confirmed long ago by now to be an accident. The entire group of Warblers had been in on the plan and had confessed shortly after Blaine had been in the hospital. They had mildly been upset with him for convincing Blaine to leave and they’d made their amends. Also the slushy was supposed to ruin Kurt’s shirt and not go in Blaine’s eye. 

Of course Blaine was trying to disregard this information.

Kurt is surprised to get through the rest of the school day without incident, including glee practice as it’s the only definitive time he and Rachel are forced to be around each other. She doesn’t even look at him. It’s better that way because he doesn’t need them around when Barry’s going to be at their house tonight.

Meanwhile, Barry’s day starts with him getting the notification that the Smythe’s have been served their summons to appear in court on Friday. According to Hiram they both stuck in meetings until around two o’clock in the afternoon, so he’ll be swinging by Dalton just before then to take Barry to the Hummel’s for the night. He packs a bag quickly in the morning and tries to go about his day as normal.

During practice with the Warblers though, they can tell that something is up with him. Nick and Jeff sit down next to him during a break hoping for him to say something but he doesn’t. Eventually practice ends and Warblers start shuffling out slowly. Barry feels like he should do something to put them at ease and then he makes eye contact with Trent, remembering what he’d said yesterday.

“Hey Trent, would you mind getting the notes from my ninth period today and for my classes tomorrow, and then sending them to me?” Barry asks him discreetly as one can with all of the other Warblers around.

“Yeah, sure. Are you leaving for an early weekend or something?” Trent inquires as he agrees to do so.

“Uh, yeah, kind of.” If one can call hiding from the Smythe’s and going to family court a vacation.

Barry finally manages to let out a sigh of relief once eight period ends and he heads down to the office where Hiram is already waiting. They quickly exit the building and get into his car to drive away from the school.

After a few moments of silence at the beginning of the drive, Hiram turns to speak to him. “I was talking with some friends of mine that work at the District Attorney’s office, Richard is already on a full rampage at their office, just so you’re aware of what’s going on.”

“I had a feeling that he would. I left my other cell phone in the dorms, I’ve had it turned off since Wednesday, with the battery pulled out just to make sure he can’t track it.” Barry tells him.

“That’s smart.” Hiram comments back.

A short while later they’re pulling up to the house and Barry grabs his bag from the backseat and heads in with Hiram. Kurt, Finn, and Sam are still at glee practice, and Burt is at the shop. For the moment, Barry decides to help Carole with some chores to keep his mind off tomorrow. He pretends to disregard the quiet conversation between Carole and Hiram as he knows they’re just concerned.

Eventually Kurt, Finn and Sam come home and they do a much better job of distracting him than Barry was doing himself. Kurt informs him of Santana’s confrontation earlier this morning and they work on homework for a while before abandoning it for video games. It’s relatively quiet that night, with some mindless chatter and gossiping about some thankfully not glee club related drama going on at their school.

As it draws in late into the evening, the four of them have to admit that it’s time to head to bed for the night because they all have to be up early in the morning. Kurt stops by Barry’s guest room before he gets ready to turn in for the night.

“How are you feeling about tomorrow?” He asks, leaning in the doorway.

Barry looks over at him from where he’s laying on the bed staring at the ceiling. 

“It’s a mix between feeling impending doom and incredibly anxious. I feel like I’m gonna throw up.” Barry admits to him.

“It’s a lot of pressure to have on your shoulders, to be honest. You should probably eat a lighter breakfast, just in case though, then you can eat your heart out afterwards when it goes well.” Kurt says with much more optimism than Barry can muster.

“You think it’ll go well? Because I can even think about it right now.” He says, sitting up slightly.

“I think they’ll see how much you love your foster family. So yes I do.” Kurt tells him. “So what do you think you’d want to eat to celebrate after? Breadstix maybe?”

“Ugh, no Breadstix is terrible. What I really miss is Big Belly Burger, why does Lima have to be in the middle of nowhere? You can’t even drive to get one. It’s a sin.”

The two of them burst out into a fit of laughter before quieting down with a bit of struggle.

“Thanks Kurt.” Barry smiles at him, glad that of all the people he broke down in front of that he got lucky that it was Kurt helping him.

“No problem, have a goodnight, see you in the morning.”

Morning comes a lot faster than Barry thought it would and when he goes downstairs for breakfast, he sees that he’s not the only one nervous today. Everyone is anticipating what will happen with his court hearing. Both Carole and Burt have arranged to have the day off of work to go and support him while Kurt, Finn, and Sam still have school to attend knowing that they can’t miss it with regionals coming up. They give him their well wishes before begrudgingly leaving for school.

Hiram arrives a few minutes after they leave, so Barry heads up to get dressed into his suit for court. Once he’s ready, Hiram spends some time prepping him one last time for what to expect when they get into the court room. When he sees Joe, he can’t go over to him, even if he wants to. He has to be ready to ignore anything the other side will say to rile him up and use against him.

The clock turns to eight and they have an hour before court, so they leave to get there early to avoid any issues. The building is already busy with others getting ready for their own court appointments. Barry’s eyes scan over the people, looking for either Joe or the Smythes. He’s not sure who he’ll see first. So far neither parties are here.

They get in line for the family court room, going through security. It feels like the time is speeding up to the starting time and he still can’t see any of them. Barry glances to the back one more time, and sees a familiar face finally.

The person he recognizes coming through is one of Central city’s ADA’s, predicted to be the future DA, Cecile Horton. Iris and him have long suspected that Joe had feelings for the lawyer but was in denial. She’d helped with much of the legal aspects of Joe becoming Barry’s foster parent to begin with, so it’s no surprise she’s helping again. 

Barry looks past her and the tension in his shoulders ease as he sees Joe come through the doors after her. They make eye contact and he sees the recognition in Joe’s eyes as he sees him. They smile at each other and then Barry feels Hiram’s hand touch his shoulder as a reminder and he half-heartedly turns away. Joe understands but it still hurts to be this close.

Not too long after, the Judge enters and as far as Barry can tell, the Smythes aren’t there.

There’s a few cases before them, and Barry feels like it takes forever but then he hears the Judge read the next case.

“Smythe Case.”

He hates that it’s not his real name that is read off but it won’t matter in the long run. They stand up and head to the front, so does Cecile, and then he sees the Smythes’ lawyer, but they aren’t there.

“Hiram Berry, you are the Guardian ad litem representing the minor, one Sebastian Smythe requesting to be removed from the custody of his adoptive parents and placed back with his foster parent Joe west, correct?” The Judge asks.

“Yes, Judge Chambers.” He responds.

“Is the foster parent Joe West present?” Judge Chambers continues.

“Yes, Your Honor. Cecile Horton, representing party Joe West.” Cecile informs him. The judge makes a note and moves on.

“And last, adoptive parents Richard and Audrey Smythe are they present?”

They are still nowhere to be seen and their lawyer speaks up. “Clive Dawson, representing the Smythe party your honor, they couldn’t be here this morning due to extenuating circumstances.”

Barry honestly, shouldn’t be surprised but he is. The Judge gives their lawyer that would make most rue the day they decide to become a lawyer in his court. He almost feels sorry for the man. Almost.

“Are you telling me that your clients couldn’t be bothered to show up when their son is asking to be removed from their custody? I know Mr. Smythe is not ignorant of the court system. Where are they?” Judge Chambers all but shouts at him.

“Mr. Smythe has another court case that takes precedent and Mrs. Smythe was unable to reschedule a work meeting without risking her job.” Does the man not realize how bad this sounds, Barry wonders.

“So their son doesn’t take precedent? They are aware they’re being accused of abuse and neglect, among other things don’t they?”

Unfortunately for their lawyer, he was only now realizing how bad this sounded for the Smythe’s. They’d grown too comfortable with the privilege of people looking the other way with Richard being the State Attorney. Not well acquainted with the judges that oversaw family court meant that they didn’t have any connections to sway with Judge Chambers.

“Of course not, your honor. My clients believe that he is just acting out, their son has a history of making outlandish stories. I’m sure you’ve read his file and-”  
“Your honor, we cannot be so dismissive about this. My client has a right to defend himself and his reputation. This is a serious matter we are discussing.” Hiram interrupts him before he can get any further. 

Barry knew that they would try to paint him as crazy, but it still hurt.

“Mr.Berry is right, we are not here to testify. This is a preliminary hearing. However, Mr.Dawson, regardless of their reasons your clients need to be here. This is a serious matter, like he said. There some serious allegations on misconduct as well as questions of legality to Mr. Smythe’s placement with your clients and to their actions thereafter.” Judge Chambers basically berates him.

“No more excuses. They’ll be here for the next court date, in the meantime Miss.Horton, I’m willing to approve your requests for visitation rights for your client Mr.Joe West and I’m keeping the order of protection in place until we can further assess the situation. A social worker will be assigned to do an independent investigation. Are there any other requests at this moment?” He inquires.

Hiram nods. “Yes, your honor. My client would prefer in future proceedings to be referred to by his birth name Bartholomew Allen with the nickname of Barry. His name was legally changed without his consent by Mr. and Mrs. Smythe and we would like approval to go ahead and change it back.”

Judge Chambers looks slightly annoyed with the new information but not at them. “I’ll grant you the legal authority to file the appropriate paperwork acting as his legal guardian. If there’s nothing else, shall we proceed to schedule the next court date? We can follow up next Friday.”

Before the others can agree to the date, Hiram is quick to amend it. “Actually, it would be preferable to do it the Friday afterward. Barry is part of his school’s glee club and they have a competition next week. It would be a shame for him to have to miss it.”

“Of course, we can do that. Next court date is set for two weeks from now on Friday. Good luck on your competition Mr.Allen.”

And suddenly, just as it started it was over. It takes a few seconds for it to set in and once it does he jumps up and turns to the direction he saw Joe last. Joe is already standing and made it halfway to him and Barry is quick to close the distance. He envelopes Barry in a tight hug and he’s in tears at the feel of the familiar touch.

“I missed you so much.” Barry whispers to him.

“Me too, Barr.” Joe whispers back.

They let go because they know that they should continue their reunion elsewhere but stay close together. Burt and Carole introduce themselves as they leave the courtroom

“It’s nice to finally meet you Joe, I’m Burt Hummel and this is my wife Carole Hudson.” Burt puts his hand out to him and Joe takes it.

“Thank you so much for helping Barry, all of you.” Joe says, still quite emotional.

“It was the natural thing to do as a parent. I’m just glad that you're being reunited.” Carole tells him.

“Right now, it’s a small victory and we still have a battle ahead of us but I think we should still take some time to celebrate. Any ideas on what you want to do, Barry?” Hiram turns and asks.

“I honestly could care less right now.” Barry laughs as he shares a smile with Joe.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, it's happened. For the first time I mixed up canon and fanon. Apparently Rachel's dad is not canonically a lawyer, however Jeff Goldblum who plays her dad has been a lawyer on Law and Order. (Probably how that headcanon infiltrated ) 
> 
> Anyway, Chapter two is up! I didn't mean to make it this long but oh well! If future chapters seem short it's only because the first two are so long. It was almost longer but I stopped myself. Also wrote Santana in for the first time, I hope I did her justice (RIP Naya).
> 
> Check my tumblr thescribblerqueen for udpates!


	3. Misfortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start to run amok just when they were getting better for Barry.

Kurt feels his phone buzz in his pocket and sneaks a glance at it as he’s in the middle of class.

“We’re moving forward with the case! They gave Joe back visitation rights and they’re enforcing the order of protection! I get to change my name back!” Barry sends him the news in a series of texts and Kurt has to keep himself from screaming.

He leans over to where Finn is sitting and flashes him the text message on his screen. He gives him a thumbs up in return.

“That’s great! I’m so happy for you!” Kurt texts Barry back. He puts his phone back into his pocket before the teacher turns around and can catch him. It’s only revision, not like he missed anything important.

Eventually the bell rings and class ends. He goes to his locker and puts away his books, grabbing his binder for the next class. Out of the corner of his eye he sees familiar shoes standing next to him behind the locker door. He shuts the door, giving Blaine a flat look as he finally acknowledges him.

“Are you here to apologize, or do you still not trust me?” Kurt asks him bluntly.

Blaine frowns at him. “Kurt, you know I’m only trying to look out for you. You know what Sebastian has done before. Why won’t you listen to me? That guy is bad news.”

“That’s an awfully convenient excuse, considering I once said similar things to you but I guess it only matters when you say it, doesn’t it. And you know if you’d actually ever been his friend maybe you wouldn’t be wondering why I won’t share this with you.” Kurt bites out at him.

“Please, Kurt if you just explained everything could go back to normal. Before Rachel does whatever stupid thing she’s thinking of next.” Blaine begs but Kurt is done.

“Blaine, I love you but right now you’re making it really hard. I’m going to walk away now before I say something we both might regret.” He leaves Blaine standing next to his locker with a disappointed look.

Rachel walks up next to him from where she’d been hiding around the corner. “See, he’s completely brainwashed by that slimly Smythe. I’m sorry Blaine, but you know what we have to do.”

“I know, I just thought he’d listen to me.” He says, still looking at the spot he was at last.

Rachel pulls on his arm, leading him away. “Come on, we only have so much time if we want to catch Sue at a good time. If we want to free Kurt, we need her help.”

During glee club, Blaine won’t look in Kurt’s direction and Rachel has that superior look that she wears when she’s up to something. Kurt tries not to worry about whatever new plan she’s up to, today’s supposed to be a good day. Barry fought his first day in court and won.

Kurt, Finn, and Sam book it from the building to Kurt’s car right after school in their excitement over the news. Barry is happily talking with Joe when they walk into the house, his head turns when he hears the front door open.

“Hey guys!” He stops to greet them after hearing the front door open. Barry and Joe are in the kitchen working on a couple of Grandma Ester’s recipes ahead of dinner. There was nothing more like home to him, than these recipes, so when asked about what he wanted to have to celebrate this victory it led to a trip to the store to purchase ingredients. 

Joe stops what he’s doing to introduce himself. “You must be Barry’s friends, I really want to thank you all for helping him.”

“You really don’t need to, we just wanted to help.” Kurt tells him, the others agreeing.

“Still, thank you.” Joe reiterates.

Barry chats with them while he continues to help Joe with the meal, discussing how court had gone that morning and listening about shared school drama. While they’re busy discussing things, Joe’s phone dings, he looks at it and smiles.

“Hey, Barr. I think there’s someone outside you might want to see.” He hints with a bemused smile.

Barry pauses in the conversation, and gives Joe a confused look before it suddenly clicks. “Iris is here!” He immediately jumps to go to the door, opening to see a new car in the driveway.

Iris pops out of the passenger side door, leaving it open as she barrels out and towards him.

“Barry!”

She throws her arms around him and ends up sending them both tumbling to the ground, thankfully onto grass, laughing all the while. An exasperated David Singh steps out of the driver’s side of the car and waves to Joe who is now standing in the doorway. Joe walks over to talk with his boss and take Iris’s things from the car.

“You two got here awfully fast for driving here after school, you didn’t speed with my daughter in the car did you?” Joe asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I would not, however, I may have signed her out of school early and gotten Big Belly Burger on the way here.” Singh admits to him.  
Joe laughs at the remark. “It sounds like you also skipped out on your meeting with the superintendent but I’m not going to judge. Anyway, Iris didn’t give you and Rob any trouble?”

“No, she was just excited about seeing Barry mostly. Listen, I’ll stop back in a bit, I’ve got to go discuss some of those things we talked about with the Westerville Police.” Joe nods in understanding.

Barry and Iris manage to pull themselves up from their heap on the ground with Iris still clinging onto him.

“I missed you.” Iris says once she regains the breath she’d knocked out of the both of them.

“I missed you too.” Barry can’t help but feel deliriously happy to see his best friend again. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots an audience looking at them from the open front door.

Once they’ve calmed down, Barry gets up pulling Iris with him and introduces her to everyone. Eventually they make their way back into the kitchen so that Barry and Joe can finish preparing the food, with Iris assigning herself the role of official food taster and sharing all the things he’d been missing in central. 

Kurt eyes them from the dining room as he helps set the table, smiling at how happy and completely different Barry was when he was with them and allowed to be himself.

Both Joe and Iris stay the weekend in Lima, at a bed and breakfast a short distance from the Hudmel household enjoying their time together. Iris had brought a bunch of Barry’s things from central, including his DVD of singing in the rain, family pictures, and other personal items he’d been forced to leave behind when the social worker had suddenly taken him from the hospital. 

The weekend goes by entirely too fast from their perspectives but Joe promises that they’d be driving up again next weekend so that they could see him perform at regionals. The two of them drop Barry back off at Dalton Sunday night before they have to drive back to Central with bittersweet goodbyes. 

Joe is tired out from the long drive when he shows back up to work on Monday but he’s willingly to preserve over calling in because he knows that they’re in the process of securing an arrest warrant for the state congressman, Thomas Watson, who’d been responsible for Barry being removed from his custody. They were waiting on some files from the Westerville police to come through, which would hopefully also connect him to state attorney Richard Smythe if their suspicions were correct. 

It takes until Tuesday morning for the D.A. to walk out of the Judge’s chambers with a signed warrant. They’re prepared, knowing that the news could get ahead of them and lose them potential evidence, and are in front of the office building within five minutes of the warrant being signed. In coordination with federal authorities, they enter the building taking the workers completely by surprise. As they near Watson’s office, his aide frantically tries to intervene.

“You need to leave, Mr. Watson will not talk to CCPD without lawyer representation, you’ll have to call him if you want to schedule an interview.” His aide is desperately trying to block them, while simultaneously shoving a business card for the aforementioned lawyer in their faces.

“Ma’am, you need to step aside or you’ll be arrested for obstructing an officer. We have an arrest warrant for Thomas Watson, so he’s coming with us whether he likes it or not. You may want to call his lawyer yourself.” Joe firmly states continuing on with Captain Singh and several other officers.

She runs ahead of them to the office door, opening it in an attempt to warn her boss, only to stop dead and scream at the top of her lungs. Joe and Singh move to push past her, the other officers quickly escorting the aide from the area.

Joe can only stare in shock as he stares at the scene before him. Thomas Watson sits at his desk, body slumped backwards and chair against the wall, a bloody gaping wound in his chest. His eyes are open and unblinking, a look of surprise painted on his face.

“What the hell.” Is the only thing he can say before walking straight back out of the office, the aide is sobbing hysterically in the hallway.

The building is subsequently put on lock down, and the hundred odd or so employees and personnel are questioned as evidence is collected from the office. It’s entirely frustrating, no one saw anyone suspicious, no one heard anything, no one had anything to do with his death. They all claim that no one had any grievances with the guy, which he finds hard to believe considering the charges listed on Watson’s arrest warrant. And as far as they can tell the man had walked into his office to take a call about five minutes before they walked in with their warrant and no one else had gone in before them.

Somebody has to have killed Watson, there’s no doubt about that. The problem being is that he clearly didn’t kill himself, nor did the weapon, let alone the perpetrator seem to be anywhere.

What’s worse is that the security cameras clearly show Watson entering his office, with little doubt on the authenticity of the footage, and then no one else.

It sends a chill of dread and fear down his spine.

Barry has a gut feeling that something awful is going to happen today.

The day starts out seeming fine enough, but something feels off. He hopes it’s just nerves, the Warblers will be competing at the end of the week and competition mode has been kicked into high gear. They’re less focused on whatever situation is going on with him at the moment because they respected that he’d asked them to leave it alone and they really couldn’t focus on it at the moment anyway.

After a long day of classes, lacrosse, and glee practice, as usual the group heads the Lima bean after one of their long days. They grab their drinks and snacks, then head over to the couches to chill. They’re chatting for a while when Barry notices Kurt in line for his own coffee, he’s usually here at this time as well now but with Blaine who’s suspiciously absent.

He nods to acknowledge Kurt who smiles and waves. Thad seems to notice this interaction and looks like he’s about to say something but then stops when the sound of a group of footsteps appears behind them. Barry turns and sees Rachel and Blaine leading a group of the new directions towards them. The looks on the two’s faces make his stomach drop. He can’t say what it is about those faces that set him off but he knows that it’s nothing good.

Kurt sees his glee group approaching the warblers as he’s handed his regular coffee and knows that nothing good is about to come out of what is clearly a Rachel Berry plan in progress. He is quick to dart across the room to get in front of the group and try to intervene in whatever disaster is about to happen. Finn and Sam run in through the entrance clearly aware shit was about to go down and a little too late to stop whatever was about to happen.

“Rachel, whatever you think you’re going to do, better stop right now before you regret it.” Kurt threatens her.

“Oh, Kurt, you have no idea how much you’ve been deceived by this slimy snake. As soon as you know the truth about Sebastian Smythe, or at least that’s who he wants you to think he is.” Rachel says, staring him down with anticipation of what she clearly believes to be the reveal of his undoing.

Finn pulls her away by the arm.

“Rachel, I told you to stop this. I’m serious this time.” He tells her in a harsh whisper. Instead of listening to him, she yanks her arm away.

“No! You all need to hear what I have to say!” Rachel continues, agitated now.

“Come on, Berry. No one wants to deal with your insane crap. I thought we dealt with this shit last week.” Santana complains from the back of the group, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. Kurt can tell it’s a half hearted attempt at dissuading her, but Santana’s gestures are never entirely helpful to being with.

“Rachel, if you do this, I will break up with you. I mean it.” Finn throws down the ultimatum.

She whips her head back to him, fuming. “Trust me, you won’t be.”

Rachel turns back to the bewildered group of Warblers, where Barry is frozen in place.

“I know the truth about you.” She points at him accusingly. “Your name isn’t Sebastian Smythe at all, it’s Bartholomew Henry Allen and he’s been lying to you all about who he really is.”

Once she says his name out loud, Barry knows that she knows everything. He doesn’t have to even hear her say it.

Kurt steps in front of her again, pushing her back by the shoulder, completely furious. 

“Rachel you better stop right now because you have absolutely no idea what you are actually doing.” 

This time, Blaine steps in grabbing ahold of Kurt and pulling him away from Rachel.

“No, Kurt. Listen, I don’t know what lies he’s been telling you to make you believe him but he’s dangerous. He’s been hiding his name from you all because his father is a murderer.”

The room stills and it goes quiet around the group.

“Sebastian, what is she talking about?” Wes asks as everyone turns to look at him. 

Before, he can even get a word out to defend himself, Rachel is back on the attack.

“I have proof too, articles with your face, talking about how you defend your father even though he was convicted for murdering a woman in cold blood. Probably because you're just like him, why else would you need my father to be your lawyer unless you’re a criminal too. I don’t know what sob story you told him, but once I expose you he won’t be defending you anymore not when he’s actually a law abiding parent who actually cares about his child, unlike your murder for a father.” Rachel says as she flashes her phone around, with the article she’s talking about in plain view.

The more she calls his father a murderer, the angrier it makes Barry. He stands sudden, causing her to step back, not as confident as she was a second ago.

“What are you going to attack me? There’s witnesses everywhere, you’ll just end up in jail just like him.” She says haughtily.

“Will you shut up for one damn minute, because you clearly can even be bothered to fucking read the article you’re talking about! You know absolutely nothing about me.” Barry shouts at her.

“So you admit it, you’ve been lying about who you really are?” Rachel is completely ignoring his response.  
“Do you even listen? You know what I don’t give a shit anymore, what the hell would you know? You weren’t there, I was!” The words burst out before he even realized what he said.

Kurt tries to intervene and seeing how much distress this is causing Barry. “Barry, you don’t owe her anything. Let’s just go.”

Rachel clearly doesn’t like the way things are going. “What are you even talking about, and you will not be going anywhere with him Kurt. He’s dangerous, his father murdered a woman!”

Barry whips back to face her again. 

“I was there that night. That woman, as you call her, was my mother. I was eleven when a man broke into our house and killed her. My dad was a doctor and he tried to save her but instead it made him look guilty. What worse is they didn’t believe me because to everyone I was just some traumatized kid trying to protect his dad. So no, you don’t know anything.” Barry finds himself shaking in giving his response.

“And for your information, your dad who practices family law which you should know, is helping remove me from my adoptive parents’ custody. Not that it’s any of your business.”

After his final statement, Barry loses his nerve and decides that he needs to get out of there as quickly as possible and flees the building before anyone else can say anything. Kurt responds by grabbing his things and going after him but not before giving Rachel and Blaine one last scathing remark.

“If you two had a shred of decency, you would’ve just left it alone when I told you to!”

“Kurt, ple-” Blaine tries to stop him from leaving but is cut off.

“Blaine, you’ve already done enough damage.” With that, he leaves both glee clubs standing there.

The two of them turn to look for some sort of support from any of the New Directions but find that they aren’t receiving any.

“Really, Rachel? Even I knew your dad was a family law attorney and had the decency not to say anything. And I’m usually the snoopy bitch.” Santana turns away taking Brittney with her, annoyed that her time had been wasted once again by a Rachel Berry witch hunt.

“Dude, that’s fucked up. That case was all over in the news when we were in middle school, how did you not know?” Puck tells them off. “And that’s coming from me.”

“Guys, come on. We had no idea-” Rachel says, now trying to back track.

“You literally have the article right there on your phone Rachel, how could you not? Both of you. And he’s your boyfriend Blaine.” Quinn remarks pointedly.

The rest of the New Directions start to quickly leave despite the two of them pleading for them not to.

“Finn, please, I’m your girlfriend. You have to listen to me!” She continues to plead.

“Rachel, no I’m not. I told you not to and what would happen. This is on you.” Finn starts turning away to leave as well.

“You can’t be serious, Finn. Finn!” Blaine is left behind while Rachel chases after him, and he turns to see that the Warblers are clearly not happy with him.

Barry can’t go far without a car, so Kurt catches up to him fairly quickly. When he finds him, Barry is sitting with his back against the wall of a nearby store, head in between his knees clearly in the midst of a panic attack. He’s had his fair share of them and does his best to bring Barry out of it.

“Barry is there anyone I can call? Maybe Joe or Iris? Would talking with them help?” Kurt suggests when he clearly isn’t getting through to Barry.

Tremors are wracking his shoulders still, but Barry manages to lift his head and dig out his phone.

“Iris.” Is the only word he can manage. 

Having helped set up Barry’s phone, Kurt knows the passcode and types in quickly, pulling up his contacts and bringing up Iris putting the phone to his ear as it rings. It takes what must be the longest thirty seconds ever before she manages to pick up.

“Barry, hey what’s-”

“Iris, this is Kurt, Barry is having a panic attack and I need your help.” He voices urgently.

“What? What happened?” Iris quickly demands to know.

“Someone found out about, well everything, and confronted him. Listen, I’m putting you on speaker.”

Iris waits a moment before speaking.

“Barry, hey it’s Iris. I need you to breathe, okay? Just listen to me, I’ll help you. In and out, in, out.” She spends the next few minutes guiding him through the calming exercises and Kurt watches as the shaking slows and Barry becomes more focused, verbally responding to her now.

“Listen, it’s going to be okay. Trust me. From what you’ve told me, you’ve got some friends that really care about you there too. And if any of those Warblers come after you instead of being your friend, I’ll take care of them when we come down this weekend.” Iris promises them.

“What are you going to do, knock them out like you did Woodward?” Barry manages to crack out a joke. Iris snorts out a burst of laughter at that reminder.

“Hopefully that’s not necessary. You know what you should do, why don’t you go back to his house and watch Singing in the Rain, that always makes you feel better.” She suggests to them.

“Okay, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll text you later okay.” Barry tells her, taking back his phone from Kurt. They say their final goodbyes and Kurt ends the call.

Once Barry takes a few more breaths, he finally stands up with a hand from Kurt.

“Thank you.” He tells him.

“No problem. Come on, let’s go get some junk food that we can binge on for singing in the rain.” 

They arrive back at the Hudmel household to find Hiram’s car in the driveway and they immediately know that he must know about the mess that his daughter has caused, meaning that Rachel probably went crying to her father. They close the front door and spot him sitting with Burt in the living room, the both of whom turn towards them once they enter.

“Barry, I wasn’t expecting for you to be coming over, although it’s good timing. Something’s come up.” Hiram says, surprised.

“If you're talking about Rachel, you’re a little late.” Kurt comments bitterly, which gives Hiram a pause.

“What did Rachel do now?” He responds with dread and the resigned acceptance that his daughter had a tendency to cause trouble.

“She found out about my dad, and basically tried to call me a criminal. And then I basically blew up at her and had a panic attack because she basically outed everything about me in front of the warblers.” Barry bluntly summarizes. “But if that’s not why you’re here, why are you?”

“Well I’ll be dealing with that soon, don’t worry. But the actual reason I’m here is because Joe called me.” Those words set off a spark of fear and worry immediately for Barry.

“What’s wrong is he hurt?” It’s always been his and Iris’s worst fear. But wait, he’d just talked to Iris and she would’ve said something. Unless she didn’t know. Joe sometimes tried to hide when he’d had relatively minor injuries on duty, not that it worked well.

“No, Joe is fine. It’s about the state congressman, Thomas Watson, he was found murdered this morning in his office when they went to arrest him.” Hiram informs him.

“Wait, that’s the guy who got me removed from Joe’s custody. He’s dead. What’s going on? What’s going to happen with our case now?” There’s an edge of panic reemerging in Barry’s voice.

“We don’t know what happened yet or how it’s going to affect our case. At the moment they’re looking at the evidence and interviewing everyone that worked for him. Most likely there’s still a trail of evidence that will prove what happened. We just need to wait for them to do their work, okay?” He tries to reassure him but it’s not what Barry wanted to hear today.

Joe sits at his desk going over the files from Watson’s office and he can’t help but feel agitated. They were so close at having this bastard right where they wanted him and someone killed him under everyone’s noses. And for what? Was there something they missed? Something that someone didn’t want someone to find out.

He tosses the file to the side and rubs a hand against his face.

Captain Singh appears at his desk moments later a grim look on his face. He can only assume that it’s more bad news.

“Joe, I need to show you something.” He says motioning for him to follow. They go towards the back of the station where they have more closed off rooms that they use when they need to keep things discreet. It doesn’t give him any good feelings.

There’s a tv set up and another detective is waiting for them, one that he has worked with from time to time. He can’t seem to look Joe in the face right now. Singh closes the door for privacy.

“Apparently, Watson had a secret surveillance camera set up in his office. Only his aide knew about it. He knew he was being investigated and that it was only a matter of time before he was caught, so he wanted to keep a close on things.” Singh starts to explain.

“He had a camera in his office. So what you’re telling me is you have the murder on footage?” It can’t be that easy, can it. Something is still off, Joe can feel it.

“That’s the problem, we caught it but-” Singh stops, staring off to the side at tv. “-there’s a problem.”

Joe has known the man long enough, even been partners with him, to know that Singh is refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

“Play the tape.”

Watson is just sitting in his office, looking over paperwork, obviously stressing over something. The video is timed stamped, it’s just a few minutes before they’d found him dead. All it takes is for one more moment to know why.

Watson moves back in his chair as a man suddenly appears before him, seemingly out of nowhere. The door hadn’t opened nor the window. He’s just suddenly there, wearing a full body yellow suit, his eyes look like they’re glowing red. Joe feels his blood chill as he begins to register what he’s seeing. In the video Watson speaks to him.

“How did you get in here!” He exclaims in shock. “I’m calling-”

His last words are cut off as in a streak of lightning, the man in yellow puts his vibrating hand through Watson’s chest. He pulls it out and blood splatters on to the desk, Waston falling back with the chair rolling with him. In another flash of lightning, the murder is gone.

Joe sits there staring at the now paused video, he can barely process what he saw. A man in a yellow suit, in lightning, appearing out of nowhere and killing someone. This has to be some sick joke.

“Joe, we authenticated the video. And we don’t have any explanation, the only thing we can connect this with is-”

“Nora Allen’s murder.” Joe finishes Singh’s words. “How is this possible?’

Joe recalls the very distressing interview Barry had given five years ago, crying and repeating the words about the lightning and the man in yellow killing his mother. How adamant he’d been, how he couldn’t explain what he saw any other way. Henry had described the same thing.

“I don’t know. But whoever, or whatever that thing is, it’s no coincidence that he killed Thomas Watson, Joe.” Singh points out to him. “This has to be about Barry, it’s the only way it connects.”

He says the words that Joe doesn’t want to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the new chapter! Lots of drama to look forward to, especially with regionals on the horizon! There was going to be more but I was ready to hit 5k again and thought I should cut myself off and pace it more reasonably.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my first published fic for the Glee fandom, I admittedly have several other crossovers either in progress or plotted out and you can check them out on my tumblr at thescribblerqueen under my fanfiction project lists.


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